


Daedalus's Rose

by equestrianstatue



Category: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (TV), Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - Susanna Clarke
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, new theories concerning the work of Dr Martin Pale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-17
Updated: 2017-12-17
Packaged: 2019-02-16 06:10:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13048107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/equestrianstatue/pseuds/equestrianstatue
Summary: “Is it not time, Childermass, that you left Gilbert Norrell’s service and came to me?”AU. Childermass says yes.





	Daedalus's Rose

**Author's Note:**

  * For [autoeuphoric (FreezingRayne)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FreezingRayne/gifts).



On the day that Jonathan Strange proposed that he become his pupil and assistant, Childermass had read his cards. They had told him that if he wished to achieve what he most desired, he must break from his habits. He had not thought that morning that the break would be so severe as to entirely leave Mr Norrell's service, but when Strange made his offer, Childermass had a clear and certain feeling that this was the thing the cards had portended. So he judged that he must say yes to it, although after he did, there was a stunned pause between them. It was clear that both he and Strange were very surprized that he had done it.

Mr Lascelles was delighted by the news of Childermass's departure, while Mr Norrell was discombobulated into the closest thing to fury that Childermass had ever seen him shew. As Mr Norrell viewed it, Childermass was abandoning him (correct) in order to side with his enemy (not quite correct) so that they might wreak destruction upon English magic as a whole and upon Mr Norrell in particular (not at all correct). He refused to listen to any of Childermass's explanations, and eventually, having worn himself out of his high temper into a quieter misery, simply instructed Childermass to leave at once. Childermass had very few personal items of his own and so left without delay, and spent the night at an inn in Seven Dials.

The next day he went to Soho-square, where he found Strange's house somewhat brighter and airier than it had been the day before, although the gloom of the place had not entirely been lifted. Dust-sheets still covered the furniture in the parlour and the sitting-room, but Strange had had the drawing-room restored to its usual appearance, and it was here that Strange received him.

“In all honesty,” Strange told him, “I did not think you would come.”

“No,” Childermass agreed. “I was not sure of it myself.”

Their meeting the previous afternoon had been the first time that Childermass had seen Strange since the death of his wife. In fact Childermass had not seen very much of Strange at all since he had broken with Mr Norrell, at which time Strange had been visibly changed by his experience abroad with the army. It had made him leaner, quieter and somehow hardened. Had circumstances been different, Childermass would perhaps have liked to hear more from Strange about what had happened to him in the Peninsula and the magic had done there. But Strange was changed once again now, very clearly so: he was a shadow, a spectre, pale and almost sickly-looking. It was as if he strove to be as close to his wife as possible by emulating some aspects of death, although some of the steel that the war had put into his expression was still there.

“I have not really prepared,” Strange said. Childermass was surprized to see him smile very slightly. It had not occurred to him that this was something Strange might still do. “Where do you think we should start?”

Childermass cleared his throat and looked about the drawing-room. There was a small pile of lesser magical volumes on a low table, and next to them a copy of William Pantler’s _Three Perfectible States of Being_ was open. It lay face-down to mark the page that Strange had been reading, in a manner that would have made Mr Norrell extremely agitated at the lack of care for its binding. Otherwise there were no magical books or instruments evident. Presumably Strange kept these in his study.

“What materials do you have, sir?” asked Childermass.

“Not as many as I should like. The books are all those that Norrell did not buy every copy of, and are therefore not of great importance— apart from one or two that he lent to me and does not realise that I have not returned. Pevensey and Absalom, for certain. And I have, I think, every issue of of _The Friends of English Magic,_ which I am sure will prove singularly lacking in useful application.”

At this Childermass smiled too. “I suppose we shall make the best of what is available.” 

“Indeed. And I suppose we must expect redoubled efforts of obstruction from Norrell now that you are here.” Strange seemed to pause on this thought for a moment. “Did he take it very hard— your leaving?” 

Childermass shrugged. “He took it as one might expect.”

“Hmm. Well, you are here, and so I must assume you will not mind working in opposition to your old master. Although in fact it is not my intention to defy Norrell particularly. Indeed I am not much interested in him at all,” said Strange, at which Childermass just about managed to withhold an expression of extreme disbelief. “I have two chief pursuits now: one is to make a serious study of the life and work of the Raven King, and the other is to make publicly available all that is uncovered as part of that study, so that across the country people may begin to engage properly with this debate and decide things about magic for themselves. In doing this I do not aim to attack or debase Mr Norrell— but if he insists on standing in my way, I do not have any interest in sparing him.”

This speech appeared to have been given more for Strange’s own benefit— or indeed, for Mr Norrell’s— than for Childermass. But Strange looked a little better after giving it, and so Childermass nodded, and said, “I understand your position, sir, and I have no objections to it.”

“I am very glad of that. I am glad you have come, Childermass, and not just because I believe that the things you have learnt in Mr Norrell’s service might prove useful, though I will not pretend that is not a consideration. No, I am glad you have come for both of our sakes. Only this morning I was re-reading Hickman’s _Life of Martin Pale_ and I was struck by a particularly interesting passage on the history of magical correspondence. According to Hickman— ” Strange paused, his hand hovering for a moment in the air, part-way through the arc it was describing as he spoke. An unexpected thought appeared to have struck him. “But you have read the _Life_ , I presume?” he asked Childermass.

It was not the way that Mr Norrell would have asked such a question— haughty, and slightly ironical, and asked precisely because he expected the answer to be _no_ , so that he might continue speaking with an even greater authority on the subject. When Strange asked the question it was with an incisive, sideways sort of look, and Childermass judged that he asked it precisely because he realised the answer must be _yes_.

“I have, sir,” Childermass said.

“Of course,” said Strange, and he took up his discourse again. “Then I expect you will remember that Hickman acknowledges the debt he owes to a number of other scholars and magio-historians in the writing of his book— rather an extraordinary statement of humility from a magician. He mentions this partly so that he can compare his own scholarly experiences with those of the magical community in England— or rather, the multiple magical communities— at the time of Martin Pale. Hickman points out that that when Pale was active, unless one gained an unusual degree of fame or power, one’s magical society was determined largely by where one lived and which other magicians happened to live nearby. Magic was still something discussed in the town square along with other elements of daily life. But by the time Hickman was writing in the last century, there were far fewer magicians in England, and they had begun to correspond with one another in in earnest from all over the country. They had to do so in order to discuss their work with other people who would understand what they were talking about or shew any interest in it.”

“And how do you think magic ought to be discussed, sir?” Childermass asked. “In the town square, or in letters between gentlemen?”

“Both,” replied Strange. He regarded Childermass for a moment with a considering expression, and then he said, “There is another book in the house, of course. My book. Or most of it, at any rate; it is almost finished. I would be most obliged to hear your opinion of it, if you would care to take a look at the proofs.”

“Gladly, sir.”

Strange nodded. “I had of course resigned myself to the knowledge that since losing the friendship of Mr Norrell, the book would go to print without the eye of a second magician upon it. It is time I remembered the idea that there are only two magicians in England is a fiction conceived of by Norrell himself— and only then because he could no longer sustain the notion that there was just the one.” His gaze upon Childermass was now one of frank curiosity, as he said, “I wonder how many more of us there are.”

*

Childermass was not bred to service. Indeed the only thing he had been expressly bred to was pick-pocketing, which remained the only profession for which he had received any kind of training. So as with his additional careers in both sailing and magic, Childermass’s tenure as a servant was one born of necessity, and his practice of it was entirely self-taught. And as with pick-pocketing, sailing and magic, he did very well at it, although this view might not have been universally agreed upon. Certainly he was a good servant by Mr Norrell’s standards, largely because, not having previously served any one else, Childermass’s execution of the role was shaped entirely by what Mr Norrell required of him. He was an even better servant by his own standards, in that his ability to use the position to gather information pertaining to his own interests was as far as he knew unparalleled by any other steward, butler, or footman in the country. But the character of service was not something he felt was deeply rooted within him. 1

It was therefore with no small surprize that Childermass found himself beginning to perform many of the same offices in Strange’s house as he had in Mr Norrell’s. He stoked and tended the fires in the rooms where they worked, and tidied up after Strange once he had left them. He brought Strange pen, parchment and ink when he could find none, coffee in the mornings and afternoons, and sherry-wine in the evenings. Strange, of course, had told Childermass that he had no intention of employing him as a servant, and indeed none of this was done exactly under his command. In fact it did not seem that Strange was entirely aware that Childermass was doing it. But like many people who have lived with servants their whole lives, there were a thousand and one small things that Strange would never have thought to do himself; and if Childermass had any wish, for example, for the room that he himself was also working in to be kept neat and ordered, then he was the only person present likely to ensure such a thing. Strange had brought only two servants with him from Shropshire, a footman named John Granger and a coachman named William Ellis. They were both young men who had not been part of Strange’s previous London household, and they were both either too inexperienced, too disinterested, or too apprehensive of Strange to manage his eccentricities at all effectively.

Childermass supposed that Strange’s natural tendency towards absent-mindedness had likely increased since the death of Mrs Strange. At times Strange seemed entirely at a remove from the world around him, and so perhaps it was quite reasonable that in such a state he should continuously leave lamps burning and plates of food half-eaten in odd and surprizing places. Within a fortnight, Childermass had a significantly better understanding and command of Strange’s little household than any one who lived in it, and the chief argument against the notion that he was in Strange’s service was only that Strange was not paying him. And if you imagine that it might be extremely vexing for a person who has lately left one position of service of their own volition, only to find themselves immediately and rather unexpectedly in such a position again— then it must be remembered that the life of John Childermass had encompassed many far greater hardships, and that the outward shew of vexation was something he had much practice at withholding.

It ought also to be remembered that at the time of his engaging Childermass, Strange had never taught a pupil before. This much he had mentioned on the first day that Childermass spent at Soho-square, seemingly at the moment that the thought struck him for the first time. Strange was used to working with assistants, but that, he explained, was quite a different thing. That had been more of a case of instructing a servant to ride out and hunt down a particular spray of wild flowers required for a spell, or, in Belgium, having a young officer assigned to triangulate the position of his visions of the French army on a series of maps. But he had never worked with the aid of some one who could bring their own magical knowledge and ideas to bear on proceedings. He supposed that the servants and the young officers might have picked up a little magical theory almost by accident, but certainly he had never attempted to educate any one in a deliberate way. However, considering how easy Strange found it to express his ideas about magic in writing— and he had a great many of them to express— he did not imagine that teaching those ideas to some one in person could be very difficult.

One morning the two of them were at work in Strange’s study. Childermass was reading a chapter of _The History and Practice of English Magic_ , which Strange had rewritten in a sudden fit of inspiration in the middle of the previous night. It dealt, as did many of the chapters of the book’s first volume, with the Raven King. This one detailed the alleged sightings of the King in the years following his departure from England, with the most recent dating from the early eighteenth century. Strange concluded the chapter by arguing that, based on these diverse accounts, it was more than likely that John Uskglass carried on living after he left England and that he lived still; but for reasons that remained obscure, he had chosen not to shew himself to any of his subjects for over a hundred years.

Strange, meanwhile, was stood at his desk attempting to refine a spell for removing dirt from articles of clothing and linen. He planned to include in his book an appendix of a few very simple spells with clear practical uses, so that any body with a desire to practice a little magic could try them. Remembering the story that had once circulated about Mr Norrell washing all the laundry of the housewives of York by magical means— and remembering that Mr Norrell had been particularly annoyed by it— Strange had rather amused himself with the idea of including a spell that would allow the housewives of York to perform such a miracle for themselves. But the necessary magic had turned out to be more complicated than he had at first envisaged. Unable to find or remember any reference to a spell actually designed to clean things, he was instead employing a spell of banishment, in order to send the dirt some where far away from the article on which it resided. But directing the spell to take effect on the dirt alone was rather difficult, and as a result Strange had that morning sent a great quantity of his own dirty laundry to some where presumably outside the borders of England.

Eventually, Childermass looked up from the page he was reading and asked, “Why do you not use Belasis?”

“Belasis?”

“Belasis’s spell of banishment is generally far more effective than Ormskirk’s— which is what you are currently using, are you not?”

“I do not need the spell to be more effective,” said Strange, only a little testily. “If any thing, I need it to to be less so. Anyhow, I think you are mistaken. I do not remember a reference to any such spell.”

“It appears in full in _The_ _Instructions_.”

“Indeed? I have never read _The_ _Instructions_ ,” said Strange. Sighing, he loosened his grip on a worn-looking neck-cloth that he currently held balled up in one hand, and dropt it onto his desk. “I believe there is only one known surviving copy, and that it is in the library at Hurtfew Abbey.”

“Ah,” agreed Childermass.

Strange stared pensively for a moment longer at the neck-cloth, but for now he did not ask Childermass any more about _The_ _Instructions_ or the spells contained within it. “What do you think?” he asked, instead, inclining his head in the direction of the papers in Childermass’s hands.

“It is very thorough,” Childermass said, “and it will irritate Mr Norrell very greatly.” Strange’s expression twisted briefly into a small smile. “However, I believe there are a few errors, and at least one significant omission.”

“Oh!” said Strange. “And what is that?” 

“You do not mention the Harrogate baker’s wife.”

“Ought this woman to be mentioned?”

“Hers is another famous sighting of the Raven King.” 2

“I do not believe I have read an account of it. Do you know where it appears?”

Childermass shrugged. “I do not. But it is a story known very well in Yorkshire. Any child there could tell it to you.”

“Is that so?” Strange asked, his eyebrows raised. “Unfortunately I do not know any children in Yorkshire.”

Childermass said, “You might find it beneficial if you did. You are writing about John Uskglass and his profound effect on English magic. It surprizes me that you have not spent more time in his part of the country.”

Strange looked for a moment as if he might have something to say in opposition to this. But then he seemed to lose the will to do so. His shoulders dropt and he closed his mouth on whatever the words would have been. This sense of retreating from a disagreement was something that Childermass had noted Strange doing more than once over the previous weeks. It was not something that Childermass believed Strange had been in the habit of doing until recently.

Strange was now looking again at the neck-cloth that lay unravelled on the desk before him. “Yes,” he said, eventually. “That is something I have always meant to devote more time to.”

Childermass had the strange sensation of having won an argument he was not quite aware he had been having. It did not please him as much as winning an argument usually did. “Come, sir, hand me a pen. I will set down the particulars of the story for you.”

“Thank you,” said Strange, and he did so; but he seemed already to have absented himself from the conversation. Childermass had not written out a full sentence before Strange wandered from the room, likely in pursuit of another book, and he did not return for the next half-hour or so. In this time Childermass set down not only the story of the baker’s wife, but what he could recall of Belasis’s spell of banishment; and then he re-read the last few pages of the chapter of Strange’s book.

 _Why it should be that John Uskglass has not been glimpsed these last hundred years or more,_ Strange wrote, _is a matter of much debate. There is an argument that his riding out of England was an act of abandonment, and that in so doing he has forsaken his people and cast them out of his heart. It follows from this that if he has not appeared before any of his subjects since the last known sighting in 1715, then his disregard for us has only increased in recent times._

_But in order to hold this opinion one must assume that the people of England were ever in his heart to begin with. Instead, perhaps it should be remembered that John Uskglass invaded Northern England rather than inheriting it by right. One might therefore regard the powerful ties between this king and his subjects as not those of affection, but those of necessity and duty. John Uskglass did not think that England needed love, but protection and guidance; if he could conquer it so easily, what was to stop others from doing the same, other than his own guardianship? Perhaps the fact that we have not seen the Raven King for so long is because he has come to believe that England is at last capable of taking care of itself._

Childermass sighed and set the pages down. Then he rose, stretched, and went over to Strange’s desk.

As well as the books, papers, pens and ink-wells one might expect, Childermass also found upon the desk the dirty neck-cloth, two worn white shirts, a coffee-cup, three pairs of sugar-tongs, some coals, half a glass of madeira, and a quantity of ivy. The ivy was there because Strange had at one point enchanted the legs of the desk to produce it, in order to demonstrate such a spell to Childermass, and it had grown curling upwards from the carved feet to the polished desk-top in a rather romantic manner. But Strange had not afterwards been able to reverse the magic and stop the ivy from growing altogether, which had surprized him, as he assured Childermass that this was a spell he had both performed and undone in the past. However, since the presence of the ivy did not significantly increase the untidiness or the idiosyncrasy of the appearance of Strange’s study, he had not been too troubled by it, and he had left it to do as it wished.

Childermass had hoped to find the copy of Ormskirk’s _Revelations of Thirty-Six Other Worlds_ that Strange had been using, so that he might compare the particulars of Ormskirk’s banishment spell with what he remembered of Belasis. In the process of attempting to uncover the book, he pruned the ivy, folded Strange’s laundry, threw the loose coals into the coal-scuttle, and gathered the coffee-cup, sugar-tongs and madeira-glass onto a tea-tray. By this point rather irritated, he looked around for some where to place the tray while he continued his excavation of the desk.

Directly above Strange’s desk there was a shelf of dark walnut wood, deep enough to hold two rows of books stacked one in front of the other. This shelf was crammed haphazardly with not only books but also other magical artifacts and supplies, including a little bell of pure silver, a quantity of red ribbon, and a smaller cousin to the silver dish that Strange used regularly for conjuring visions. However, there was enough space at one end of the shelf for Childermass to rest the tea-tray there for the time being.

In so doing Childermass’s eye was caught by a number of candles that were partly concealed behind some of the books on the shelf. Or at least _candles_ was the closest word Childermass could have used to descibe them. They were small, squat, irregular quantities of hardened wax, some with long wicks that drooped over their sides, and some with no wicks at all. They had evidently been made by a person with little to no knowledge of chandlery. When one looked closer it also became apparent that most of these candles had small pieces of paper fastened to them, some of which had been tied on to their over-long wicks, and others of which had been simply poked into the wax before setting.

Childermass reached behind the books and took up the nearest candle, which, upon inspection, was labelled _Jealousy_. Another was labelled _Self-importance_ , and another _Mirth_.

“I had forgotten those were kept there,” said Strange’s voice, from the doorway.

Childermass cleared his throat and turned around. He was not so much embarrassed to be caught examining Strange’s possessions— Strange had always declared that he had nothing to hide, and besides, in inviting Childermass into his home, he must have assumed that he was also inviting Childermass to make an interested survey of what he found there— as surprized that he had not heard Strange approaching. It would not do, despite their current partnership, for Childermass to let down his guard. Strange, who had always exuded such an unignorable, boisterous presence, had become so quiet, moving around his own house like a ghost.

“Do you know what they are?” Strange asked.

Childermass said, “I believe they are examples of Daedalus’s Rose.” 3

Strange nodded, and came into the room. Under his arm he had three more books, which he deposited onto a chair. For a moment he looked at the misshapen candles in Childermass’s hands. Then, when Childermass had begun to suppose that he had nothing further to say on the topic, Strange said, “It was a magical procedure that particularly interested Arabella.”

“Indeed?” said Childermass. In all the weeks that Childermass had been visiting this house, Strange had not mentioned his wife by name; although her constant presence, or lack of it, had remained extremely and almost obstructively clear. “My understanding is that Daedalus’s Rose is a spell that has not worked for some centuries,” Childermass added.

“Oh! Quite so,” said Strange. “I never had the least success with it. But the idea of making a pretty little preservation of one’s qualities rather charmed Arabella. I copied the instructions out of Pale’s _Journey Towards Illumination_ when Mr Norrell was not looking so that we might attempt it here, and as you can see we made quite a number of attempts. I think that after two or three we were both privately resigned to the fact that it did not work; but I believe that Arabella found it amusing to think up a diversity of sentiments to be captured, and find ways to inspire them in me.” 

Childermass had not known that Strange had been in the habit of researching or performing magic with the assistance of his wife. Though not a man moved much to pity, Childermass felt a discomfort in his breast now that he supposed was something of the sort, despite the fact that he had met many men who had lost their wives, and women who had lost their husbands and children. Strange’s situation was nothing so very unusual. Arabella Strange was not somebody Childermass had known to speak to, but she was by report a bright, practical, quick-thinking sort of person— and, on Mr Norrell’s behalf, Childermass had had cause to receive a great many reports of her when she had been alive. He felt some queer regret at the thought of the dead woman’s memory reduced to a handful of badly-made beeswax candles.

This was not at all the sort of thing that Childermass would have said aloud, and even if it were, he did not think it would have been particularly helpful for Strange to hear it. So instead, he said, “It is a remarkable piece of magic, or at least one imagines it must have been in its time. There are not many spells that can be used effectively both as a love-potion and as a weapon of war.”  4

“No, indeed,” agreed Strange. “My experience of magic at war chiefly involved the building of roads and the management of rainfall. I have not yet met any one who was moved to passion by either of those things.”

“Some of these are not labelled,” Childermass observed, as he replaced the candles on the shelf.

“Are they not? Oh, yes, you are right. Despite Arabella’s best efforts my systems of classification have never been exemplary. On some occasions we made two or three different candles at the same time and I forgot which one was which. So some have been left blank and I would not be surprized if some of the others are labelled incorrectly.”

“Ah,” said Childermass. This seemed all of a piece with other aspects of the general management of Strange’s affairs. Then he picked up the piece of paper on which he had lately been writing. “Here is my recollection of Belasis’s spell of banishment, sir. Do you not think it worth trying?”

“Oh, very well,” said Strange. He came to stand next to Childermass at the desk, took the paper from him, and read it once over. “It is very elegant,” he conceded. He went to pick up the neck-cloth, realised it was no longer on the desk, and then cast about for it in some confusion until Childermass retrieved it from the newly-folded pile of laundry. Strange took it from him, looked at the spell again, and then paused. “Why don’t you try it?” he said.

Strange held out both the piece of paper and the neck-cloth to Childermass, and after a moment, Childermass took them. He placed the neck-cloth on the desk and laid one hand upon it. The other, as the spell instructed, he laid upon his own heart. Then he began to do the magic.

*

During the time he spent assisting Jonathan Strange, Childermass continued to consult his cards. For the most part he did not get very clear answers, but whenever this had happened in the past it was invariably because he was not asking the right questions. He attempted sometimes to use the cards to discover how Mr Norrell did, although— like any one who picked up a newspaper or listened to a word of idle chatter on the street— he already knew very well how Mr Norrell did. Now almost entirely under the influence of Mr Lascelles, Mr Norrell railed publicly and urgently against the forthcoming publication of Strange’s book, although he had sent nobody to Soho-square to directly deliver his displeasure to Strange. In the absence of Childermass, perhaps it was not obvious who he ought to send.

Strange did not take any more notice of Childermass’s card-reading than he did of any thing else Childermass did in his house that was not at Strange’s suggestion or did not demand Strange’s explicit attention. Or at least Childermass had assumed as much, until Strange asked one day, quite unexpectedly, “Do they work?”

Childermass looked up in surprize. The cards of Marseilles were spread before him upon the little writing-table that he had come habitually to use in Strange’s study. Strange himself was reading in an armchair, or rather he was holding a book and looking over the top of it at Childermass.

“Yes,” Childermass replied, “or else I would not use them.”

“And yet there is no spell attached to them? No actual piece of magic that is done?”

“Not in the sense of a spell, no.”

“There seems to be very little written on the subject of card-reading. I do not recall any renowned practitioners of it.”

“No, indeed,” said Childermass. “It is not a kind of magic that encourages renown. It belongs to the sort of people who do not write books and thus has never been of much interest to those who do. Would you like to see?”

Strange’s expression remained somewhat sceptical. Childermass assumed that this reaction was not dissimilar to Mr Norrell’s dislike of the cards. They were an accessory of yellow-curtained street-magicians and had no place among the prescripts of modern magic; and some of Mr Norrell still lingered about Strange, as much as he might wish otherwise. However, it did also occur to Childermass that Strange’s mistrust might be because he considered the cards to be French.

Nonetheless, after a moment Strange rose, placed his book on the floor, and came to the table where Childermass was sitting. He watched while Childermass gathered the cards together, mixed them, and then laid out a row of nine.

“Will you sit, sir?” said Childermass, looking up at him.

“Is this my fortune?” Strange asked. Childermass only raised his eyebrows, but Strange pulled up a chair and sat nonetheless.

Childermass turned over the first card. It was _The Three of Swords_. The three swords were crossed and overlaid in such a way that they almost looked tangled up in one another, more like branches or briars. The dark, slashing lines that made up Childermass’s copy of the picture did nothing to dispel the sense of anguish and loneliness that this card usually conveyed.

That Strange was heartbroken would not come as much of a revelation to either one of them. So rather than linger upon it, Childermass turned over the next card, _The Two of Swords_ , and then the next, _II. La Papesse_. When he reached the fourth card, _The Nine of Cups_ reversed, Childermass paused for a moment and considered it in some detail. Strange sat in silence and let him do so, and then watched as he turned over _XVIII. La Lune_ reversed, _The Ten of Wands_ , _XVI. La Maison Dieu_ , and _XIII. La Mort._

Here, the roughly-drawn skeletal figure, scythe in hand, was clear enough even to Strange, who folded his arms as he regarded it. “That does not surprize me in the least,” he said, nodding towards the card. “I have been fairly surrounded by death ever since I was in the Peninsula.”

“That may well be. But this card does not represent death itself. It is most often the portent of some great change.”

Strange did not look particularly convinced, but Childermass moved on to turn over the final card. It was _IIII. L’Empereur_.

Childermass surveyed the row of cards for some moments more in silence.

“So?” Strange asked, a little impatiently. “What do they mean?”

Childermass took more time than was customary to compose his answer. This was partly because, like many other readings he had recently attempted, he found that he could not interpret what he saw before him as clearly as he might expect. It was as if a fog hung between his mind and the story that the cards must be telling, and he did not know what had put the fog there. It was also because, based on what he could understand, he did not think Strange would like the reading very much.

“It is not a very happy set of cards,” he said, at last. “But neither is it one that spells doom.”

“Go on.”

“Here,” said Childermass, tapping _The Three of Swords_ , “is sorrow and heartache. It is an over-abundance of unhappiness. But here, _The Two of Swords_ , is a barrier— one designed to block and stifle emotion. The Papess shews me this even more clearly. She withdraws from society and sits in solitude. You have closed yourself off to the world entirely.”

“That is not true,” said Strange.

Childermass was not at that moment much inclined to argue. He was regarding _The Nine of Cups_ reversed once again. “This card puzzles me,” he said, at last. “It is the opposite of all I have just described. It seems to indicate satisfaction of desire, or perhaps even an indulgence in pleasure.”

“Well, that is excellent news.”

“But then here— ” Childermass indicated The Moon, “is fear and bewilderment, illusion and fantasy.”

“I am not so sure about that,” said Strange. He peered at the card, which depicted an unusually dark and grimy-looking moon hanging heavy over a pair of baying dogs. He did not seem to like the look of it. “In many magical texts the moon is discussed as a symbol of clarity. I know a spell in which the moon is employed expressly to dissipate falsehoods.”

Childermass shrugged. “I can only tell you what I see, sir.” 

“Well, then, what comes next?”

“It seems that ahead of you is a great struggle,” Childermass said, pointing to _The Ten of Wands_ , and it will lead to your— ” he paused again, looking at The Tower. He had been about to say either _downfall_ or _defeat_ , but neither of those words were quite correct. “An upheaval,” he said, “a great blow of some sort.”

“And then my death,” said Strange, with a rather wry smile.

“No, not your death. _La Mort_ is perhaps the least unhappy card in your hand, sir. It tells me that the upheaval will result in a great transformation. It is a step into the unknown, but it does not mean the end.”

“If you say so. And last of all?”

Strange indicated The Emperor. After the day in Threadneedle-street when Vinculus had played a trick with Mr Norrell’s fortune, this card had returned to what Childermass remembered as its original appearance. The Emperor was once again a mature, stately man, and the bird at his feet was decidedly eagle-like. But whenever Childermass looked at this card, there was a brief, unreal moment where he saw the Black King that Vinculus had once contrived to place upon it. Now, between one blink of an eye and another, he saw it again. It made him feel even more unsettled than it usually did, and he did not feel minded to tell Strange about it.

“The Emperor is a figure of authority,” Childermass said, eventually. “Order will be created out of chaos. Things will be put to rights once again.”

“Is that so?” said Strange. “And am I the Emperor— or do you think it could be Norrell?”

“I do not know that it is either one of you.”

“Well,” said Strange. He sat back in his chair and looked up and down the line of cards Childermass had laid out. “I do not see any thing to convince me that all of this is not a very clever trick. Surely any rogue can bend the pictures to tell whatever story their subject wishes to hear.” 

“And is that what you think me, sir? A cheat?” 

Strange shrugged. “You told me yourself that you were a thief.”

“That is not the same thing.”

“No,” agreed Strange. He gave Childermass his shadow of a smile. “Anyhow, I did not say I disapproved.”

His curiosity apparently satisfied, Strange stood, and returned to his armchair and his book. Childermass went to gather up the cards again, but before he did, he looked along the line once more. Perhaps, he thought, not a little begrudgingly, Strange had not been wrong about The Moon. It was reversed, and such a presentation could indicate the very opposite of what the card usually portended. Not obstruction, but revelation. But when it had first been dealt, it was one of the few cards that Childermass had felt quite sure he understood. He scratched thoughtfully at his cheek.

Childermass swept the row of cards back together, and the Emperor looked out at him from the top of the pile, flat and lifeless. The fierce figure that lay some where beneath the card’s edifice was nowhere to be seen. Strange’s interest in John Uskglass was only increasing as the days went by. If, as Strange had suggested, Childermass had had reason to tell a story designed to please Strange, then there it had been before them on the table, with the Raven King at its end. And yet Childermass had not told him.

Now Childermass looked hard at the card once again, but The Emperor remained his dignified, solemn-faced self. So he cut the cards back into the pack, and the figure was gone altogether.

*

One evening Childermass was sat in Strange’s study writing letters. Or in truth he was writing one letter, but he had begun writing it many times over and on each occasion found some fault with its contents and had to discard it.

_Soho-square  
_ _May 17 th, 1816_

_Sir,_

_When last you and I spoke you were endeavouring to find a way to prevent the publication of Mr Strange’s book. I entirely understand your reasons for doing so and I do not intend to put forward any argument against them._

_However, I beg of you to hold off this course of action. This is for the sole reason that I believe it would adversely affect Mr Strange’s state of mind to such a degree that he may be moved to behave unpredictably, even dangerously, as a result._

_I trust that you will accept my assurance that I write to you not from a stance of opposition, but only in service and friendship…_

Meanwhile, Strange, at his desk, was busy making amendments to the final chapter of _The History and Practice of English Magic_. He had promised Mr Murray that this would be the very final time he did so, and that once he had sent back the corrected proofs, he most certainly would not recall them again; though he had also made the very same promise the previous week. From where Childermass sat he could not see the pages, but he could see the back of Strange’s head bent over them, and hear the quick scratch of his pen.

_It is my sincere hope that all is well in Hanover-square, and should any questions arise regarding the management of the household that I may in haste have neglected to impart to Lucas, I hope that he will not hesitate to write or come to me directly so that I may assist in solving them…_

Upon leaving Mr Norrell’s house, Childermass had told both Lucas and Davey where he could be found should he be needed, but he had had no sight of them, nor any of Mr Norrell’s other servants, since that time. The little inn in Seven Dials— where Childermass had preferred to remain, although it had since occurred to Strange to offer him the use of a room in Soho-square— received letters now and again for one or two of its other long-standing residents, but Childermass had had no word from any of them either.

_Yours in good faith…_

Childermass read his letter two or three times over, folded it up, and wrote the address onto the front. Finding sealing-wax in Strange’s study took a little more time than one might expect, but eventually he discovered some underneath an upturned slipper on a chair. He sealed the letter, looked at its address for a moment longer, and took it up.

Throughout all of this Strange remained focused entirely on his work, and did not seem to have any notion that Childermass was busy disturbing slippers and other similarly important items around the room. So rather than interrupt him, Childermass went out of the study without taking his leave.

Neither John nor William came at his call, which at first Childermass took to be nothing more than an example of the usual lack of discipline in Strange’s household, but he discovered after looking in the kitchen, the pantry, the scullery, and the attic that neither man was anywhere to be found. Then he remembered that it was customary on a Friday for both of them to take their suppers at an ale-house in Compton-street and that they would not be expected back until much later in the evening.

With nobody to deliver his letter, and with little inclination to deliver it himself, Childermass stood for a while in the kitchen, turning the square of paper over in his hand. Eventually he put it into his pocket; but then almost at once he took it out again, and threw it into the kitchen-fire burning low in the hearth.

Feeling somewhat out of temper, Childermass left the kitchen to return to Strange’s study. The study was situated at the end of a wood-panelled passage on the ground floor, and as Childermass walked along the passage he became aware of the smell of burning paper.

“Mr Strange?” he said, as he approached the door; but Strange was not inside. As was his custom, Strange had presumably all of a sudden stopt what he was doing and set off in search of a book that had travelled elsewhere in the house. His writing-things were where he had left them on the desk, and so too was the candle he had left burning— but the candle had fallen over onto a pile of papers that it had been placed next to. These papers were now burning merrily away, producing bright orange flames that were growing larger by the second.

“Mr Strange!” called Childermass, very much louder this time, and he ran into the study. “Mr Strange, come here, sir!” He looked about for a glass or jug of water or wine, but could find none. The fire had now almost entirely consumed the pile of papers on the desk, which were a disorderly collection of handwritten spells and notes, and half-begun letters and articles— but they were not, by great fortune, the proofs that Strange had been correcting, which lay very nearby. Childermass snatched these up before the flames could reach them and threw them onto the floor.

At this moment Strange appeared in the doorway. He looked faintly irritated at having been summoned in so direct a manner— but as soon as he saw what was happening he too rushed into the room. By now Childermass was wresting off his coat, and he threw it over the flames; but he was too late to stop the fire from catching a pile of magical journals which overhung the edge of the shelf above the desk. He tried to grab at the corner of the journals to pull them away from the rest of the books on the shelf, but the fire had engulfed them too quickly, and he nearly burnt his hand.

“Quick,” Strange was saying, pulling off his own coat, “quick— ” but with a sound like a tiny howl of wind, a copy of Hether-Gray’s _The Anatomy of a Minotaur_ that sat upon the shelf went up in flames. This in turn ignited two more books next to it, which were blackening and curling at an alarming rate by the time Strange threw his coat over them all, and the fire was at last put out. 

Meanwhile, Childermass had pushed much of the rest of the contents of the shelf onto the floor, in order that as many books as possible might escape damage. The floor around the shelf and the desk was now covered with a scattered collection of books lying any which way, from which was rising a cloud of dust. The roll of red ribbon had also fallen and was now unravelled all over them. They were joined too by the remains of some porcelain tea-cups which had been caught up in the journey from the shelf to the floor and which had not survived it, and the little stock of misshapen candles— save for one, which had been behind _The Anatomy of a Minotaur_ when the fire had reached it. This candle— or rather this lump of beeswax— was now half-melted on the shelf, and a pool of its liquid wax was collecting on the wooden surface.

Both Strange and Childermass regarded the scene before them. The room smelt very strongly of charred paper and calfskin, and for a moment neither of them spoke. Childermass was very relieved that the danger had passed, and he was also very annoyed with Strange for having been so careless. Indeed he got as far as opening his mouth to say something of this kind before he realised that he could not very well rebuke Strange for damaging his own property in his own house. There was also an unusual sweet, sticky smell that lingered in the air along with the smoke, and Childermass realised it was the result of some of the ivy on Strange’s desk having being caught up in the conflagration. The smell seemed to crawl into Childermass’s nose and make his head feel unpleasant and dizzy. 

“It seems I must thank you, Mr Childermass,” Strange said. He sounded a little dazed by the shock, and when Childermass turned to look at him he was still staring at the mess around them. “That could have ended very much worse.”

Some part of Childermass would have liked to roll his eyes in exasperation, and some other part of him would have liked to accept Strange’s thanks as graciously as he knew how. But as it was Childermass did not do either of those things. He was beginning to feel exceedingly queer. His skin was tingling with a sensation that was one moment pins and needles, another moment cold as snow, another moment flushed with heat. It was a little like having the fever, only in double-time; and he had a very strong impression that it was being caused by magic.

“Mr Strange,” he said, and his voice sounded very low and heavy to his own ears. “What are you doing?”

Strange frowned, and shook his head; then he shook it some more, as if there was something caught in his mind that he did not understand. “I am not doing any thing,” he said, “but I feel…” He began to shape his mouth around a word, but then he could not seem to find one that suited what he wished to describe. 

Childermass thought he knew what that was like. He looked once again around the study, and his eye was caught by the half-melted candle on the shelf. Its trickle of wax had now reached the shelf’s edge and was beginning to drip slowly onto the desk below it.

Strange had followed his gaze. “Which one is it?” he asked, as Childermass moved forward to look more closely at the remainder of the candle.

“It is not labelled,” Childermass said.

By now, however, the sensation that had begun in Childermass’s skin was beginning to take shape more fully inside of him. He did not think he needed a label to identify it; and when he turned to look back at Strange, whose mouth hung a little open, his eyes very wide and dark, he did not think that Strange did either.

“Childermass— ” Strange said, the word somewhat strangled, and then he stopt talking and swallowed. 

In received opinion Strange was held to be a handsome man, and Childermass had often heard him described as such. However, this opinion was almost certainly born in part out of a favourable comparison to Mr Norrell, rather than being an unequivocal commendation of Strange’s own appearance. It was true that he was tall, but his features themselves were rather irregular, and more often than not his face was pulled into a sarcastic expression that did not make him look particularly dashing. Childermass had never set any great store by beauty, not being possessed of it himself and not finding much use for it in others. It seemed to him a consideration that was outside of the necessities of the world. But at this moment the sight of Jonathan Strange had an unprecedentedly powerful effect upon him. Strange’s tousled hair, the curve of his open mouth, the long fingers of the hand that twitched by his side: all of them stirred in Childermass a most overwhelming desire to touch him, and to do far more to him besides. 

In the startled flickering of Strange’s expression it was perfectly clear that he was undergoing a similar experience with regard to Childermass. A distant part of Childermass’s mind suggested that perhaps they ought simply to remove themselves from one another’s presence until the effects of the magic had worn off, but he was not at all inclined to listen to it. 

“Childermass, I find that— ” Strange began, his voice very thick, but once again it seemed he lacked the ability to articulate quite what it was that he found. Instead he took a step in Childermass’s direction; and without a further thought Childermass caught Strange’s face in both his hands and kissed him. 

Strange made a muffled noise against his mouth, and he grasped immediately at Childermass. His hands at first at were at Childemass’s collar, then at the back of his neck, then sliding upwards into his hair, loosening its tie. Childermass with a grunt stumbled forwards, then backwards, and then steered Strange’s body so that he pushed him against the edge of the desk. Strange reached at once behind himself with one hand to knock some of contents of the desk aside; his ink-well and pens fell to the floor among the books and the ribbon and everything else, splashing ink onto the floorboards, and some of the charred remains of the burnt papers were scattered about. But Childermass did not have the leisure to attend to any of this. Instead he helped hitch Strange upwards to sit upon the desk, while Strange pulled him in closer by the front of his shirt. Strange’s hands between them then began to unbutton Childermass’s waistcoat, his mouth hot on Childermass’s all the while.

Childermass found that he wanted not only to touch Strange’s body but to look upon it— perhaps even to admire it— and so he copied Strange’s actions, pulling Strange’s waistcoat open and pushing it off of him. His shirt was even easier to remove, and then the skin of Strange’s chest and shoulders was hot and smooth under Childermass’s hands. There was a shallow-looking scar on the outside of Strange’s left arm, perhaps a hand’s-span down from his shoulder. It was not so very remarkable, but going by Strange’s otherwise comfortable life Childermass assumed he must have come by it either in the Peninsula or in Belgium. It interested him: he found that all of Strange’s body interested him, even as it aroused him, and he bent his head to run his tongue along the white ridge of the scar in appreciation. Strange shivered beneath him.

Strange in turn divested Childermass of his waistcoat and shirt, and exhaled in obvious pleasure as he put his hands on him. In general Childermass attached no particular pride and no particular shame to his own appearance. His bones, his muscles, his skin and hair simply were what they were, only of interest to him in as much as their physical functions. But he felt in the pulse of the magic a redoubled excitement at the idea that Strange might enjoy his body: that he might find it pleasing to look upon, that he might be aroused by the strength and the roughness of it. And indeed it seemed that Strange was, for he did several things almost at once. He hooked one foot around Childermass’s legs to pull him as close as possible into the gap where Strange’s own legs were spread; he pushed his hand down to feel the place where Childermass’s prick was beginning to swell; and he bent his head to put his mouth to Childermass’s chest, his tongue pliant at Childermass’s left nipple. Childermass gave a hard sort of gasp and thrust himself even further forward into Strange’s mouth and hand, and Strange took him willingly, wantingly, as Childermass pushed his fingers into the rough tangle of Strange’s hair. 

When Strange had first been engaged as Mr Norrell’s pupil, and had been present most days at the house in Hanover-square, Childermass had not known him particularly well. They had spoken, of course, but almost always in Mr Norrell’s presence, and rarely of any thing more interesting than the arrival of a new commission from a Member of Parliament or the details of a dinner that Mr Norrell was expected to attend. But Childermass had nonetheless at that time formed a clear impression of Strange’s character through his effect on other people that Childermass already knew well, and especially upon Mr Norrell. Childermass remembered Strange and Mr Norrell shut up for hours at a time in the Hanover-square library, and the queer, high sound that emanated from the room from time to time. It had eventually become apparent that the sound was that of Mr Norrell’s laughter. In all his years of service Childermass had had no notion that Mr Norrell was capable of producing such a sound or that there was such a person in the world who could cause him to do so. Yet Strange had managed it seemingly without effort. And it was this aspect of Strange— his vigour of personality, his charm, his open interest in all that was around him— that had convinced London, and England, and presumably Mrs Strange, that he was both attractive and enjoyable to spend time with. It was also this aspect of him that seemed to have been missing since his return to London earlier in the year.

Childermass thought of this now because a hot huff of breath had escaped Strange’s mouth against his skin, and Childermass realised that it had been laughter. Not the bitter bark of it that he sometimes heard Strange give in response to some remark about Mr Norrell, but laughter as his most natural response to happiness or to pleasure. In amongst the desperate pull of the lust that the magic had created, there was space for Strange to enjoy himself; and indeed Childermass was aware of this feeling too. He did not simply _need_ the heat of Strange’s body pressed close to his, or the feel of Strange’s palm at his prick, he _liked_ it, he _loved_ it; and when he groaned his appreciation Strange gave another short, breathed-out laugh and caught Childermass’s nipple none too gently between his teeth.

By now Strange had worked open Childermass’s breeches, and the feeling of Strange’s hand sliding around his prick, dragging at it, made Childermass almost double over with sensation, with the renewed urgency of his arousal. For a moment or two he let himself simply thrust into the loose fist that Strange had made around him, and then he pushed Strange backwards. Strange’s head came away from Childermass’s chest and he looked up at him with his mouth wet and his eyebrows raised; and Childermass took the opportunity to reach between Strange’s legs, where he found him hard against his breeches, against the wooden desk, pushing eagerly against Childermass’s hand.

So Childermass unfastened the buttons and took out Strange’s prick. “ _Ah_ ,” said Strange, very pleased by it; but almost at once Childermass let go of him. He pushed Strange even further backwards, and himself further forwards, so that if there had been the space for it Strange might have laid back across the desk. As it was Strange braced one hand behind himself to keep his body at an angle, and Childermass all but climbed into Strange’s lap, one knee coming up to rest on the edge of the desk, and took hold of him again. Strange too was trying to get a grip on him once more; their hands knocked together, and then when Childermass thrust forward he felt the head of Strange’s prick against his own.

“Oh,” Strange said, “Oh, God— ” and then he was kissing Childermass again, the words lost indecipherably in his mouth, his thumb rubbing with unrelenting accuracy at the underside of Childermass’s prick.

When eventually Childermass dragged their mouths apart and bit on impulse at Strange’s ear, Strange moaned very low in his throat, arched his hips forward, and came almost at once. Childermass kept his hand on him as his prick softened, working him through it, sucking with undiminished interest at his earlobe. He only let go of both of those parts of him when Strange’s grip turned much harder and the tug of his hand much faster, the movement almost unforgiving. Childermass let the last vestiges of himself grow dim and blurry, to slip away from his own mind, until all that remained was the stretch towards pleasure, the harshness of desire, the pull of his prick, and nothing else— and then it was done. He felt as though he turned inside-out, and Strange’s hand grew wet with him.

Childermass felt the magic leaving them in a way that was not dissimilar to a hundred tiny butterflies shaking their wings and taking flight— not that he had ever seen or felt a hundred tiny butterflies do such a thing before. In the absence of the magic his body began to register its slight discomfort at the awkwardness of his position, and his mind began to register its extreme surprize at all that had just passed.

Strange’s breathing next to Childermass’s ear was very loud, and when Childermass moved carefully backwards and out from between his legs, his expression was rather astonished. He watched as Childermass found his waistcoat on the floor, and then found a handkerchief in its pocket with which to clean himself. After he was done he held it out to Strange, who took it, pushed himself to his feet and did the same.

“That piece of magic has not worked in over two hundred years,” said Childermass, eventually.

“Yes,” said Strange, rather shortly. He looked as though he had been about to return Childermass’s handkerchief, but then thought better of it, and instead he dropt it on to the mess of the desk behind him. “I am well aware of it.”

“And yet— ”

“Indeed,” said Strange.

For a moment longer they looked at one another; and then Strange turned back to the desk, where his shirt lay dirtied among the ash of the burnt papers. Nonetheless he took it up and began to dress, and so Childermass did so too.

It occurred to Childermass that Strange’s instinctive reaction to what they had just done might be to simply ignore it. Partly because it was not something that either of them had, in the strictest sense, chosen to do, and so perhaps could be forgotten; and partly because Childermass was aware that many gentlemen did not consider laying with a man who was not of their own class to be an act of any consequence. But somehow he found it hard to attach this way of thinking to Strange, and indeed when Strange was dressed, he regarded Childermass with an expression that was shrewd and serious enough that Childermass dismissed this possibility.

“According to Dr Pale— ” Strange said, at last, and to his own surprize Childermass began to laugh; a low rumble that bubbled up from his chest and out into the warm air around them. Strange looked momentarily a little put out, and then he smiled too, wide and rather helpless.

“Go on,” Childermass said. “No, go on.”

“I will,” said Strange, “because you will be interested, Mr Childermass: according to Dr Pale’s instructions, one need only warm the Rose until a little part of the preserving medium is melted. He says that as soon as one can smell the wax or the honey in the air the magic will be able to take effect. In this way a single Rose can be used many times over if needed. However, in this case, I think we have used up a very great deal more of the contents than that. I do not know whether this affects the potency of the magic.”

“Perhaps,” Childermass said. Even now, although no more than a few minutes had passed, the memory of what had happened was beginning to take on a distant, unreal quality. It was if it were a story that Childermass knew well but not one in which he actually appeared. He struggled to place himself within it, although his body told him most certainly that he had been there. “It was— not like any thing I have felt before,” he said, slowly. “I do not only mean the strength of the magic.”

“What do you mean?”

Childermass gave the question some thought. The answer was not yet entirely clear in his own mind, but it had something to do with the difference between indulgence and necessity. Childermass had lain before with men and women both, most often people he did not know and had not seen again thereafter. He was familiar enough with both the animal function of lust and with the broader reaches of desire. But he had always experienced such things as brief, necessary spikes: a frustration or a pull that grew so strong that he must do something to expend it, after which it would be quieted again. He was not usually very much concerned as to who might quiet it with him, so long as they were willing. Some of those people he had been more physically attracted to than others; towards some of them he had felt more fondness than others. But what he had experienced in this room had been entirely something else. It had been not only lust in its purest sense, but a form of desire that was entwined irrevocably with many other things: with joy, and mischief, and an appreciation of another person that seemed to him impossibly extensive.

“The sensation that was preserved,” Childermass said, and he gestured first towards the remainder of the candle on the shelf, and then, a little vaguely, towards his own breast. “I do not think that its realisation is generic. In fact I think it is very specific. In this case the feeling that was provoked in both of us was one that I think belongs distinctly to you— to the way that you yourself experience such a situation.”

Strange’s brow was creasing in a frown, but one of surprize rather than any thing else. “I did not know that,” he said. “That is not a factor that is set down in the description of the magic.” 

Childermass shrugged. “Perhaps Pale himself did not know,” he said. “Perhaps we are the first to discover it.” 

Strange was chewing gently on his bottom lip. “I think it may be more specific even than that,” he said, after a moment. “The feeling that— ” Strange, too, gestured loosely into the empty air in front of him, seeming to encompass both himself and Childermass. “—It is not one that I have been familiar with for some time. In fact it was as if…” He stopt and shook his head. “I think the preservation is not only of a quality belonging to the particular magician who performs the spell, but to that particular magician at that particular time. If you see what I mean.”

Childermass thought again of Strange and Mrs Strange when she had been alive; of the two of them living together in this house, practising magic. “I do,” he said. And then: “But still none of this explains why this spell has suddenly begun to work today. I have never known such a thing to happen before, Mr Strange— and I have been following up unlikely reports of magic for many years now. None of them were true. And yet this one is.”

“Something is changing,” Strange said. “Something is changing in England. The King’s Roads are opening for the first time in centuries, and now…” His gaze, which had become a little unfocused when he had tried to describe the sensation of the magic, sharpened once more as he looked at Childermass. “You feel it too, do you not, magician?”

“Yes,” said Childermass. “Yes, I do.”

Strange nodded in satisfaction. He did not, it seemed, harbour any distaste towards Childermass, or any regret towards their newly intimate knowledge of one another— but then Childermass’s recent experience of Strange’s own attitudes indicated that such a reaction was not something that lived within him. His spectrum of sexual understanding appeared to span from enthusiasm at one end to matter-of-factness at the other, and was in its liberal nature not entirely dissimilar to Childermass’s own.

Strange now seemed to remember the carnage that had been created of his study. He looked about him in a slightly subdued manner, gave a low exhale, and then nudged at one or two of the books on the floor with his foot. Then he went to the shelf and picked up the blackened remains of one of the books there. “It is a shame about the Hether-Gray,” he remarked, as the binding came away in his hands. “Not that it was any kind of masterpiece; but it had a few useful descriptions of some older magic.”

Childermass too came to inspect what remained on the shelf. Along with the Hether-Gray, which was almost entirely destroyed, Strange’s copy of Sutton-Grove’s _De Generibus Artium Magicarum Anglorum_ was also rather scorched— though this, Childermass reflected, was no very great loss, and indeed it probably could have done with a little more time in the fire. Between the Sutton-Grove and the Hether-Gray was a third book, not so badly burnt as the _Anatomy_ but more so than _De Generibus Artium_ , and Childermass picked it up. It was covered in dust and ash, and although when Childermass brushed it off its binding was much mutilated, he recognized it as Lord Portishead’s _A Child’s History of the Raven King._

It seemed this book had caught fire in something of an unusual fashion: part of its cover had been burnt entirely away, but from the centre outwards, so that there was a large, misshapen hole where the leather binding curled away from the pages within. This hole continued on through the pages of the book, becoming infinitesimally smaller leaf by leaf, and around three-quarters of the way through the book it became small enough that Childermass could not have poked his thumb through it. But as Childermass turned the pages, and the size of the hole diminished, its outline became more sharply defined, until in the last few pages of the book was burned the unmistakable shape of a small, black-edged Raven-in-Flight.

Childermass felt a queer thrill, not entirely pleasant, travel through his body; and he closed the book firmly shut.

*

It was not a fortnight later that Strange at last had the final manuscript of his book delivered to Mr Murray; and it did not come as a very great surprize to Childermass when, the following day, Strange told him that he planned to go abroad.

“I have done what I said I would do,” said Strange. “The book is finished. Soon any one in the country will be able to buy a copy, and to make up their own minds about everything within it, and perhaps some of them will decide to study magic. It is right that England should be full of magicians. But at this moment I do not think it strictly necessary that one of them is me.”

“I understand, sir,” said Childermass.

Strange then paused for a long moment, and Childermass let him. They looked at one another knowing very well what the other was about to say, until at last Strange added: “I do not expect you to come with me.”

Childermass did not necessarily think Strange’s plan to leave the country a bad one. Indeed for Strange’s own state of mind it seemed a very sensible idea to travel as far away as possible from a house that must hold a memory of Mrs Strange in every corner. But with all he knew of what was to come— or more precisely, all he did not yet know— Childermass himself could not have been induced under any circumstance to abandon England.

“No,” Childermass said. “I think it is better that I do not.”

“Although— I hope you know that this has nothing to do with you. Or rather, what I mean is, it has nothing to do with…”

“Yes,” said Childermass, “I know.”

The haze that hung about Childermass’s recollection of their magical encounter had not dissipated, but nonetheless the memory of it had been called abruptly to mind a number of times since: at the sight of Strange’s desk in his study the following morning, or of Strange’s ink-stained fingers. In these moments Childermass retained an impression of pleasure that he did not see any reason to regret. Indeed if he had had any previous intimation that such a thing might happen— if, somehow, he had asked such a question of his cards that they had revealed it to him in advance— he did not think that he would have taken steps to avoid it.

Childermass had also supposed that, whatever either of them might think about it, this event would necessarily be the cause of an increase in tension between himself and Strange. It had been the opening of a door of unlooked-for sexual possibility, and now a shared, silent understanding of its existence hovered at the edges of their every conversation. But in fact Childermass had been quite wrong about this. If any thing he had felt that he and Strange had been particularly at ease with one another these past two weeks, as if a valve had been released and some unrealised pressure lessened. 

“Of course it is not a decision entirely divorced from you. I have also taken into consideration the fact that I do not think you ought to be my pupil,” Strange said now. One corner of his mouth turned a little upward. “Indeed I do not think you ought to be any one’s pupil. I am not sure that you require any guidance.”

“All magicians require guidance,” Childermass said. “But I thank you, sir. And I do not mind your leaving. Truth to tell, had you not been going away, I think I would soon have departed.”

Strange was nodding; his expression was a little rueful, a little amused. “Perhaps we are better suited as allies than as partners. Certainly we are better suited as either than as enemies.” 

“Believe me, sir, I may have worked many years for Mr Norrell, and done much on his behalf— but I was never your enemy.”

Strange looked as though he might have something to say to this, but, unusually, he did not seem to find the words he was looking for. Instead he nodded at Childermass with his small half-smile, took a step forward, and held out his hand. Childermass shook it, feeling the dry warmth of his palm, his firm grip.

When they stepped back from one another, Childermass added, “I am not sure that Mr Norrell is your enemy, either.”

“Neither am I,” said Strange, with a sigh. “I do not know what to make of him now. But that is all one; I do not intend to think of him while I am travelling and making new discoveries about magic. Or perhaps I should say old discoveries. There are some very ancient kinds of magic to which I should like to devote more study. I begin to think that they might bring me success where I have had none.” Childermass had been about to ask Strange of which kinds of magic he was speaking, but then Strange said, “And you? Will you return to Norrell?”

Childermass said, “I do not think that Mr Norrell would permit my return.”

Strange looked rather thoughtful. “I would not be so sure,” he said. “Imagine what his life has been like these past months. Think of all the little things he must have grown so used to you doing for him, and all of them now gone. I would be surprized if he did not regret that. Oh, he has plenty of other servants— and of course he has Mr Lascelles— but do you imagine that Mr Lascelles can do one-tenth of what you can do, Childermass?” For a moment, Strange’s smile was very sharp; and then it was gone again. “And besides, I think that your old master has a capacity for… feeling, that he himself perhaps does not understand. It is very deeply buried, and it is very seldom moved, but it is there all the same. And I believe that when he loses something that is truly important to him, he feels the ache of its loss very hard.”

How easy it was for Strange to be ruled by emotion, and how readily he ascribed it to others! And yet perhaps there was some truth in what he said. After all, he had moved Mr Norrell to excesses of joy and of despair that Childermass had not known were within him. Perhaps that was Strange’s gift, both to inspire and to recognize in his friends those things that they kept hidden from themselves. Certainly Childermass had not expected to feel, as he did now, some regret at the prospect of parting from Strange— even though he had always expected this moment, and even though he would in some ways be fairly glad to be quit of him. 

“Anyhow,” said Strange, “I do not suggest that you ought to return to Norrell. I only say that if for any reason it suited you to do so, I believe that you could.”

“I understand you, sir,” said Childermass. For the moment, he did not wish to pursue this avenue of thought any further. “And where is it that you will go?”

“Oh! I am not yet sure. South, I think. I should like to see some of Italy— having seen plenty of Spain already.” A brief pause, and then Strange said, “If I should wish to write to you…”

“If you do, sir, then write to Hanover-square, but addressed to Lucas. I will make an arrangement with him to pass any letters on to me.”  5

“And Lucas is to be trusted?”

“As much as any man can be.”

Strange nodded. It appeared that he had come to the end of all he wished to say. Abruptly he looked around the drawing-room, his gaze falling upon a pile of books on the coffee-table; he went to them, ran his finger down the spines, and pulled out the book second from the bottom. Childermass thought for a moment that Strange had simply judged their conversation to be finished, been struck by a particular thought about magic that he wanted to pursue, and begun to do so without pausing to excuse himself— as was his custom. But then Strange brought the book back to Childermass and held it out to him. It was Hickman’s _Life of Martin Pale_.

“Will you accept a present, sir, with my compliments?” Strange asked. “I know it is nothing so very valuable, and it is not so nice an edition as Mr Norrell’s, either; but I should like you to have it, as a token of my gratitude for your company these past months.”

Childermass thought of saying that Strange did not owe him any thing more than he himself owed to Strange (and that he did not consider himself to be in Strange’s debt). He thought of saying that Strange’s haphazard library was depleted enough as it was, and that he should not like to lessen it any further. He thought of saying that he did not think he would need any token to remember Strange by; that Strange was woven far too intricately into both his and Mr Norrell’s lives as to be removable by distance or by time. But in the end he said none of those things. Instead he said, “Thank you, sir, very much,” and took the book from Strange’s hands.

 

* * *

 

1 Many people who encountered Childermass during his time in Mr Norrell’s service expressed a similar opinion, although in these cases it was not generally intended as a compliment.

 

2 In the early seventeenth century the wife of a baker in Harrogate was much aggrieved to find that, while her back was turned, one of a fresh batch of bread-rolls had disappeared from her shop. Believing the bread to have been stolen, she ran at once outside to catch the thief, and saw a dark, ragged-looking figure disappearing down a side-street. She called out to the figure to stop, and when it did not, she gave chase.

Although the baker’s wife was not an old woman and she pursued her quarry with all the speed and determination she possessed, she was unable to catch up with the figure until they reached a wheat-field on the edge of the town. All the while she had been chastising the unknown person in the strongest terms for thieving, and to this she now added an accusation of cowardice, since it appeared that they were afraid to face a woman who held nothing but a rolling-pin. But when they had both gone through the gate to the wheat-field the figure stopt and turned around. He was tall with very pale skin, and his hair was as long and dark as a winter waterfall. His black clothes were old-fashioned and looked worn with age, but they were made of fine stuff. The baker’s wife recognized the man at once as John Uskglass, the Raven King.

Immediately the baker’s wife fell to her knees and begged forgiveness for her harsh words. She rescinded her accusations of low morals and implored the King to take his fill of food from her shop until he was no longer hungry. She bowed her head so low that she could see only the ground on which she knelt, and she felt a light, cool touch upon her head not dissimilar to a breath of wind, although the air was perfectly still. When she looked up again, the King had disappeared.

The baker’s wife returned to her shop. There, in the place where the missing bread-roll had been, she found a silver crown, worth hundreds of times the value of what had been taken.

When the baker’s wife told the story to her husband he was much astonished, and not a little proud that of all the bread-rolls in Harrogate John Uskglass had chosen to eat one of his. From then onwards the baker began adding an extra bread-roll to his batches of twelve, so that there would always be one spare in case the King should want it. Very soon this practice spread throughout Harrogate, and later throughout Yorkshire, and later to other places in the country; and this is the origin of the phrase a _baker’s dozen_ , or a _King’s dozen_ , to mean a batch of thirteen.

 

3 “Daedalus's Rose: a fairly complicated procedure devised by Martin Pale for preserving emotions, vices and virtues in amber or honey or beeswax. When the preserving medium is warmed, the imprisoned qualities are released. The Rose has— or rather had— a huge number of applications. It could be used to dispense courage to oneself or inflict cowardice on one's enemy; it could provoke love, lust, nobility of purpose, anger, jealousy, ambition, self-sacrifice, etc., etc.” _Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, _by Susanna Clarke, pub. Bloomsbury, London, 2004.

 

4 Childermass is likely referring to the theory that the English victory at the Battle of Flodden Field in 1513 was due to the deployment of Daedalus’s Rose.

In the early years of the sixteenth century, Dr Martin Pale had enjoyed the patronage of the Prince of Wales, Arthur Tudor, and was on friendly terms with his wife Catherine of Aragon. When Arthur died, Catherine was married instead to his brother Henry, soon to become Henry VIII of England. Henry was famously mistrustful of magic and magicians in his youth (although later in life, when he became older and lazier and inclined to find means of effecting his wishes that did not involve great effort on his part, he discovered a renewed interest in the possibilities of magic). Upon Henry’s succession Pale found that he no longer enjoyed significant influence at court, and left to go travelling.

However, when James IV of Scotland invaded England in 1513, Henry VIII was at the siege of Thérouanne in France, and Catherine of Aragon, as Regent, was commander of the English army in England. She applied to Dr Pale for assistance in the matter of the Scottish invasion, and he provided the instructions for the Rose, which he had recently devised. Pale’s suggestion was to use the spell to inspire cowardice in the Scottish ranks, causing mass desertion and ensuring an English victory.

Catherine, however, instructed Pale to instead provide a stock of candles that when burnt would inspire extreme over-confidence. Pale did as he was bid, and the candles travelled to Northumberland in the company of the English army. They were brought secretly to the camp of James IV by an English herald on the eve of the Battle of Flodden Field and left among the personal stores of the Scottish king. It is believed that James burnt the little stock of magical candles that night and, as a result, made a number of brash mistakes in the following day’s battle. These included moving his army too quickly from their favourable position on a hillside to attack the English troops stationed on lower marshy ground; and placing his most experienced and valuable officers on the front line of the battle, where many of them were quickly killed, rather than deploying them strategically among the ranks of Scottish infantry. With so many officers dead, the Scottish army was unable to co-ordinate a retreat, and their soldiers were massacred. James himself died on the battlefield.

It has been pointed out that Pale’s original suggestion of dispensing cowardice to either James or his troops would have been more immediately effective and resulted in fewer casualties on both sides. Most scholars agree that Catherine judged that causing an opposing army to desert by magical means would have been an unkingly act; but that effecting a means for them to be defeated while fighting to the death was an honourable use of English magic.

 

5 There are no surviving letters between Jonathan Strange and John Childermass, and it is unknown whether they corresponded following Strange’s departure from England. However, Strange did write to his friend John Segundus as he travelled across Europe towards Italy, and his good opinion of Childermass appears to have been maintained during this period. The following appears in a letter to Segundus from Geneva, Aug. 19th, 1816:

“…I am well aware that you have many reasons to distrust the man and indeed I have no arguments to put forward against any of them. I could protest that he is an honest fellow and that his intentions are noble, but I cannot say with any certainty that either of those things are true. And yet I can only impress upon you that nonetheless he has my trust. Your assessment of him is, I think, a little too harsh— unusual for you! In fact I would go thus far: should you find yourself in a magical predicament of any kind, I recommend you apply in the first instance to John Childermass for assistance.” _Letters and Miscellaneous Papers of Jonathan Strange_ , ed. John Segundus, pub. John Murray, London, 1824.

 

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked this story, you can also reblog it [on tumblr](https://justlikeeddie.tumblr.com/post/169196805667/daedaluss-rose-equestrianstatue-jonathan)!


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